The success of a disability law is not measured only by what it promises. It is measured by whether a child can enter a neighbourhood school without being treated as an exception; whether a job applicant can seek accommodation without risking rejection; whether a wheelchair user can reach a public office; whether a Deaf citizen can access information; and whether a person with a psychosocial or intellectual disability can exercise legal agency without being spoken over.Ten years after the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, India has built a stronger legal foundation for these rights. But the distance between statutory recognition and everyday freedom remains substantial.The Act was a significant departure from the narrower framework that preceded it. It expanded the list of recognised disabilities from seven to 21 and brought concepts such as equality, non-discrimination, reasonable accommodation, accessibility, inclusive education, social security, and community participation into Indian law. It also strengthened reservations for persons with benchmark disabilities in government employment and higher education.This shift mattered because it changed the language available to disabled people. Inaccessibility was no longer merely unfortunate. Refusing a necessary accommodation could be understood as discrimination. Exclusion from education, employment, transport, or public services could be challenged as a rights violation rather than accepted as an individual misfortune.The law also helped widen public understanding of disability. It recognised conditions that had long remained invisible or poorly understood, including autism, specific learning disabilities, multiple sclerosis, thalassemia, and acid attack-related disability. This broader recognition created pathways, however uneven, for people previously left outside official systems of support.Judicial interpretation has further developed the law’s potential. Courts, particularly the Supreme Court, have clarified that equality does not always mean identical treatment. In Vikash Kumar v. UPSC, the court placed reasonable accommodation at the centre of substantive equality and cautioned against reducing disability rights to rigid percentage thresholds. This was an important reminder that an individual may face a real barrier even when they do not fit neatly within an administrative category.Government programmes have also moved disability higher on the policy agenda. The Unique Disability ID system has sought to standardise certification and improve access to entitlements across states. The Accessible India Campaign has drawn public attention to the accessibility of buildings, transport, and digital systems. Accessibility standards, institutional policies, and compliance requirements are now more visible than they were a decade ago.These developments should not be understated. Yet recognition is only the first stage of reform.Uneven implementationThe largest weakness of the past decade has been uneven implementation. The experience of the Act depends heavily on geography, institutional capacity, awareness, and the willingness of officials to act. A right available in a metropolitan court or central university may remain largely theoretical in a rural school, district hospital, local transport system, or small workplace.Accessibility illustrates this gap most clearly. Too often, compliance is reduced to the construction of a ramp. But access is a chain: the journey to a building, the entrance, internal movement, toilets, signage, communication, websites, forms, emergency procedures, and staff behaviour must all work together. If one link fails, participation can still become impossible.India therefore needs to stop measuring isolated accessibility features and begin building complete accessibility systems.Complications of a disability IDCertification presents another contradiction. A disability certificate or UDID card can unlock essential services, reservations, scholarships, pensions, and concessions. At the same time, the process may be delayed, medically rigid, digitally inaccessible, or difficult to navigate outside major cities. People can spend months moving between hospitals and offices simply to establish an impairment they live with every day.A rights framework should make support easier to access. It should not turn recognition into an endurance test.Data is another structural weakness. The disability prevalence recorded in India’s last Census is far below global estimates. This is not merely a statistical disagreement. Under-counting affects budgets, services, school planning, employment strategies, disaster preparedness, and political visibility. Future surveys must use stronger functional questions and produce disaggregated data across gender, caste, age, income, location, and disability type.The law’s implementation also requires a more intersectional approach. Disability rarely operates alone. A disabled woman facing violence, a Dalit child with a learning disability, a Deaf student in a rural school, or a person with psychosocial disability living in poverty encounters several systems of exclusion at once. Policies that address only one identity may fail to reach those facing the greatest barriers.The next decade should therefore focus less on announcing commitments and more on building enforceable systems.Enforceable systemsAccessibility must be embedded in public procurement, infrastructure approvals, digital contracts, transport planning, housing, and disaster management. Public money should not be used to create new barriers. Local governments should be required to conduct disability-led audits and publish time-bound correction plans.Disability commissioners need adequate staff, independence, investigative capacity, and mechanisms to ensure that their directions are followed. Complaints should not disappear into administrative correspondence. Institutions should be required to report publicly on reservations, accommodations, accessibility, and grievance outcomes.Education policy must move beyond enrolment figures. Inclusion requires trained teachers, accessible learning materials, flexible assessments, assistive technology, anti-bullying safeguards, and support for different communication and learning styles. A child is not included merely because their name appears on a school register.Employment policy must similarly move beyond recruitment quotas. Retention, career progression, accessible workplaces, reasonable accommodation, reskilling, and private-sector responsibility are equally important. Disabled people need pathways to meaningful work, not only entry into low-mobility roles.Finally, disabled people must have formal authority in implementation. Consultation cannot occur after plans, budgets, and standards have already been decided. Organisations of persons with disabilities should be involved in design, monitoring, audits, evaluation, and grievance reform at every level of government.The RPwD Act changed the terms of the national conversation. It established that disabled people are citizens with enforceable rights, not objects of welfare. Its next phase must ensure that this principle becomes visible in ordinary institutions and ordinary routines.The challenge before India is no longer whether disability rights should exist in law. It is whether the state and society are prepared to reorganise systems so those rights can be exercised without exceptional struggle.Puneet Singh Singhal is a disability inclusion and climate justice advocate. He is the founder of Green Disability and Dilli Dehat Project.